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HomeMy WebLinkAboutNatural Resources Advisory Board - Minutes - 03/27/2019NATURAL RESOURCES ADVISORY BOARD REGULAR MEETING March 27, 2019 6:00pm 300 Laporte Avenue, Council Information Center – Note Room Change MARCH 27, 2019 – MINUTES Page 1 1. CALL TO ORDER by Nancy at 6:02 pm Board Members Present: Jay Adams Drew Derderian Elizabeth Hudetz Luke Caldwell Danielle Buttke Nancy DuTeau Barry Noon Kevin Krause Bob Mann Board Members Absent: Staff Members: Lindsay Ex Abbye Neal Honore Depew Guests: Dan Konzek, Community member Karen Artell, AQAB William C Bladin, Community member 2. AGENDA REVIEW Reviewed aloud by Nancy Welcome new member Kevin Krauss 3. COMMUNITY MEMBER PARTICIPATION None 4. APPROVAL OF MINUTES Correction on February Minutes: page 4, Looking at fracking, and bids that are coming in. Polis is now stating that the cities should have a say in whether they allow fracking; he will not sue cities who will allow fracking. While they are still functional, this needs to be addressed. Air quality will become a larger problem. Luke moves to approve minutes, as amended, Danielle 2nd, unanimous 5. NEW BUSINESS a. Water Allotment Management Program • Abbye specifically serves commercial customers with water conservation. Allotment Management Program - AMP BOARD NAME TYPE OF MEETING – (REGULAR, WORKSESSION, SPECIAL) March 27, 2018 – MINUTES Page 2 • Review Allotments and Excess Water Use (EWU) surcharge • Review customer response • Allotment Management program (AMP) • Motion to council • Had first reading on consent agenda last week, advised to review with boards to get board opinions. Next reading is April 16th • Water Supply Requirements – (raw water requirements) • Dedication of water rights or CIL of water rights to the water utility to provide reliable water supply series to the customer • Two methodologies • 1960-84 was just based off of acreage • 1984 changed to acreage and the estimated water use for type of property • Strictly for commercial customers and irrigation taps • Allotment • WSR equivalent for commercial taps installed after 1984 • Annual volume of water a tap can use before being subject to surcharge • Not punitive, allows utility to recoup the cost • Surcharge applied to all water used over the allotment • Increased from $12,500 to $33,400 per acre-foot • Increased from $3.06 to $8.14 per 1,000 gallons • This is why there was a need for a solution • Commercial Water Allotments • Through year customer receives water at regular rate, and when they exceed the allotment, they receive the surcharge, cost of water triples. • 34% of commercial taps have an allotment • 11% receive EWU • 3% highly impacted • HOAs and Sprinkler taps (owned by a business or HOA, often for irrigation) • Customer impact • Inefficient Use • Allotment is not sixed correctly for the use type – a customer has allotment, receive excess water use fees when they exceed, the challenge is that what their land needs is more than their allotment, even with efficiency are exceeding allotments. Often large landscaped spaces. • Questions: How is demand effected based on variable water demand and significant temporal trend? Do not use forecasting models, demand varies over time, various climate models? Do you work with CSU water center? (Answer) Some of their research is not scaled down enough for this. • Customer Outreach & Feedback • Increase was a lot • Time given to implement solution wasn’t enough time • If solution isn’t implemented, folks will be forced to stop watering landscapes. • A lot of interest in changing landscape to less water needing native plants, xeriscape BOARD NAME TYPE OF MEETING – (REGULAR, WORKSESSION, SPECIAL) March 27, 2018 – MINUTES Page 3 • Establishment period for plants, will continue to exceed allotment, would be a multiyear project, not simply over one season. • ELIZABETH - Xeriscape is possible in steps, saves a lot of water, even more long term • Rationale • Example 1 (The numbers in options are EXAMPLES ONLY) • Need 6.7M gallons • Allotment is 3.1 M gallons • Excess water Use is $25K • Option 1 Pay 25K in excess in water use fee each year • Option 2 Pay $366,000 to increase allotment (one-time fee, increases allotment forever) • Option 3 Pay $75K to implement water conservation project (Landscape conversion) • BARRY – How is option 2 calculated? Could be a really good deal, what accounts for expediential curve? • Finance has estimated the projection cost for a limited time • NANCY – Raising the fees, will they go up? • Water use rates are figured based on cost to distribute and treatment (infrastructure) • LUKE – Doesn’t actually seem like a high rate, when looked at per capita • DANIELLE – we are not accounting for cost of the impact that we have on natural resources, current pricing structure is accurate at all, and option 2 does not touch what the cost should be • BOB – Option 2 appears to be a reflection of 1984, how is perpetuity factored in? • Will take it back to finance team • LINDSEY – Rational above is an example, not a policy option. • These “options” are current policy, AMP, what we are hear for today, is different and really just a part of option 3. This would be a big change based on utility cost. • There is a team to assure that developers are not underpaying. • There is a larger issue that only 1/3 of customers have an allotment, based on the 1984. • Trying to give customers who are in this situation a solution as soon as possible, these other pieces are part of a bigger picture. • NANCY – As part of Option 3, this is creating the roadmap of culture conservation project choices. • AMP Structure • Eligible customers submit a plan for long term permanent water reductions • Staff determines if customer and project qualify • Reduces water use • If project qualifies, customer receives a temporary exemption from excess water use fees • Max exempt is 3 years and is based on scope of project • Customers who do not complete project will be billed for any applicable excess water use fees • Utility will have the availability to back-bill when necessary for risk mitigation • ELIZABETH – would another option be to go back to contractor/builder and let them pay the difference? Many of those developers from the 80’s are long gone. • Customers have been receiving this since 1984, but the city had not heard from anyone BOARD NAME TYPE OF MEETING – (REGULAR, WORKSESSION, SPECIAL) March 27, 2018 – MINUTES Page 4 until the recent rate increase • BARRY – In favor of positive incentive program, would like to see added “conservation easements” to receive a tax incentive to do so, but for that to work there needs to be long term monitoring to ensure compliance ongoing. This would create an ongoing cost to the city to monitor, which would need to be built into original cost. Often a 30-year time horizon to prevent a creep in non-compliance. • One requirement to participate is for them to sign up for online water monitoring AND “landscape budge program”, with monthly water use compared to weather – this will mitigate some of this. Since they are only exempt for a limited time, they will be subject to the fees again. • DANIELLE – City has not adopted grey water policies and we are missing opportunities to build that into new properties • KEVIN – Goals for this seem right, for HOAs as an example, this is a significant cost and should work for reduction. Wouldn’t the goal be to get water use as low as possible? • As a conservation oriented group, we have more focus than some communities in town, who may not be as focused on low use, ultimately it is up to the customer how they want to proceed with water use but Water Conservation tries to help customers towards their efficiency goals • AMP Benefits and Risks • Program Benefits • Create solution for group of affected customers • Increases community’s drought resiliency and conservation ethic • Cost-effective way to reduce volume of water that hasn’t been accounted for at development • RISK • Number of Customers who are engaged is less than 50, and the temporary revenue implication is less than $400,000 • Customers that exceed annually is around 350, max impact is about 1.2 million • Total customers about 3500 customers • High impacted group around 150 customers • Timeline/Next Steps • Started in 2018, work sessions with water board and outreach • First council reading March 19th • NRAB is last board stop • Program Launch June 2019, open for applications • Would give people who want to implement solutions time to do so, before that allotment typically hits in September, some will wait until 2020. • BOB – of 50 that are engaged- how many? 30 HOA’s and 20 businesses • KEVIN – compared to non-engaged? 70 are HOA’s and the remaining of the 350 are businesses, (HOAs are almost always irrigation taps) • ELIZABETH – if people would do true native xeriscape it would really eliminate so much of this • LUKE – would like to see the back billing a bigger consequence BOARD NAME TYPE OF MEETING – (REGULAR, WORKSESSION, SPECIAL) March 27, 2018 – MINUTES Page 5 • ELIZABETH – can new builders be given an incentive to do xeriscape or xeriscape from the very beginning? • NANCY – Who works with HOAs to get this work done? Referred to Danielle’s comments from the parks service and outreach will be done most by Abbye’s dept. • KEVIN – If someone takes advantage of the program, city back bills them, sends it to collections, is there any bonding or any way to prevent the utility from? Would be a lien, the safety net. • Abbye needs NRABs message by April 4th. • Proposed: “I move that the NRAB supports the proposed change in code an Allotment Management Program to Council as with additional recommendations which will be provided in a separate memo to council.” • ACTUAL NOTES: NRAB supports the proposed program and recommends the following: (based on feedback from meeting minutes). Grey water would be significant, encourage the city to encourage to include grey water and should be an option for funding if and when the program succeeds. Important to add the language about grey to keep it; ensuring contractors are accountable at time of development. NRAB feels that Option 2 does not represent the true cost of water and should be readdressed. Board encourages additional engagement on the actual cost of water use in a long-term objective, even beyond option 2. • BARRY NOTE: If you increase the allocation, that is less water that is available for the rest of that natural world, and it’s a finite resources which cannot be recreated- he would like to see a slide in the future about the REAL cost of water use which include economic values along with fundamental human health and conservation. If someone else gets more water, some aspect of our community is going to have less. • ELIZABETH – insect loss and pesticides will also be reduced by more xeriscape or xeriscape and should be included in the recommendation to council as an incentive to new contractors/builders. • DANIELLE will provide this to Abbye based on member comments and minutes. Barry moves to send memo (prepared by Danielle) to Abbye, Bob 2nd, unanimous b. Regional Wasteshed Update - Strategic Plan Goals Impact the strategic plan support and drive this work, - Very important to know we are misplacing a lot of things in this community. o 2016, about half of the landfill waste from homes and businesses could have been recycled/composted o 2016, about half of industrial waste could have been recycled/composted - Wasteshed Coalition o TAC Technical Advisory Committee o PAC Policy Advisory Committee o Stakeholder Advisory Group o Created a MASTER PLAN for solid waste infrastructure to decide what to do when the landfill is full and closes (expected 2024), adopted by Larimer County in 2018. - Stakeholder engagement BOARD NAME TYPE OF MEETING – (REGULAR, WORKSESSION, SPECIAL) March 27, 2018 – MINUTES Page 6 o Strongly supports master plan - Larimer county capital investments o New landfill o Central Transfer station o Yard waste composting facility o Construction and demolition debris processing facility o Food waste composting facility o Recycling center improvement - Over $50 million invested - No tax revenue needed - No capital expenditure from Fort Collins - Potential to address 75%+ of our landfilled waste (with no money from the city) - Existing Landfill – will reach capacity by 2024 - New Site Entrance will be on west Trilby road, just west of South Taft Hill Road with intersection improvement, exact locations are still being laid out - Intergovernmental Agreement – signed by Loveland and Larimer County (March 19) o Obligations of Larimer county ▪ Fund, build, own and manage new facilities o Obligations of all parties ▪ Consider code changes for solid waste ▪ Participate in a solid waste policy council ▪ Coordinate data tracking and education o IGA does not obligate Fort Collins to enact new policy - Potential Code changes in Fort Collins to Enable Construction: o New Landfill – none o Central Transfer – none o Yard waste – none o Recycling center improvement – flow control for curbside single stream recyclables o Food waste composting facility – local policy needed, no flow control o Construction and Demolition (C&D) debris sorting facility – flow control, for mixed loads of C&D debris - Loveland’s yard waste is enough to trigger the construction of a County-owned composting facility; Fort Collins’ construction and demolition waste (C&D) would be enough to trigger construction of a County-owned C&D sorting facility. - FLOW CONTROL – a legal requirement that a certain type of waste material be delivered to a certain facility – recommended for construction and demolition debris in Fort Collins to trigger sorting facility development. o In Fort Collins the one we can control the most is the C&D Debris, this would be a facility that can handle thousands of pounds per day to sort out what can be recycled o Would need a policy that would direct all mixed loads of construction debris from Fort Collins to specific facility o The C&D sorting facility alone could divert enough material from Fort Collins to bring us 33% of the way closer to our 2025 Road To Zero Waste goal (90% diversion). BOARD NAME TYPE OF MEETING – (REGULAR, WORKSESSION, SPECIAL) March 27, 2018 – MINUTES Page 7 - Proposed flow control ordinance – mixed loads of C&D must be delivered to county-owned facility, for a period of 10 years. o Would go into effect once new facility is built o Aligns with current construction site recycling standards o Offers “all in one bin” service for jobsite convenience o Positive feedback from builders and roll-off haulers LUKE – how would a facility be designed to protect from hazardous materials? Currently would only cover materials that are not at risk for being hazardous LUKE – what accountability exists to make sure that hazmat materials are not being thrown in anyway? There are site visits and expandable ways to hold accountably NANCY – would Hoffman Mills, still accept material? Doesn’t stop current practice, allows people to keep their status quo, but feedback of all in one bin seems to save money KEVIN – Considering wood and then paint, when cross contamination happens? Contamination rate (residual portion) has been factored at about 30%, and even with that, it still makes a large dent in overall waste BOB – Asbestos, when discovered at the facility, would cause the hauler to return and naturally give negative feedback to sites - IGA Adoption Timeline o Loveland March 19 (adopted) o Larimer March 19 (adopted) o Fort Collins April 16 (possible) ▪ There have been concerns recently raised by a particular stakeholder, which will be addressed at at a meeting of elected officials April 4th 12:30-2:30 at Policy Advisory Committee meeting – 200 w Oak on first floor. o Estes Park April 23 (expected) o Wellington Q2 (pending) ▪ Wellington would have its own transfer facility, just like Red Feather LUKE – hopes Fort Collins moves forward to sign on April 16th has opportunity for public comment, Board members may weigh in with verbal testimony, since a formal memo will have been submitted, NRAB members may speak as NRAB members at council public comment regarding this. c. Triple Bottom Line Scan Overview ▪ Includes 6 Boards and Commissions to test the triple bottom line, based on the expertise of the participants ▪ What is it? Environmental health Economical Health Social Health 10 questions in each area Asks positive, neutral, negative, Direct/Indirect/NA This was used with e-bikes, as a pilot ▪ Why we do it Provides support and consistency in measuring TBL impacts BOARD NAME TYPE OF MEETING – (REGULAR, WORKSESSION, SPECIAL) March 27, 2018 – MINUTES Page 8 Uncovers trade-offs to promote transparency of opportunities for mitigation Operationalizes city commitment to sustainability ▪ Completed by staff, takes up to 1 hour ▪ Generates summary that goes in to council packet, nice visual for council ▪ Shows the priorities that will be a key concern that will keep reliability in check as well QUESTIONS: LUKE – where are the friction points? When there is an internal staff group, there is a project team and people who have the tool and not the expertise, also assign a “devil’s advocate” in the room that has expertise and checking of bias. How we communicate about the tool has been really powerful. Biggest challenge has been people interpreting questions. LUKE – how can we auto correct for validity? These questions have been committed to use through 2019, and have been used in various pilots, currently talking about evaluation of the tool. DANIELLE – is there concern about the three areas of environmental, economic, or social based on some topics that do need bias as an environmental checkpoint? The tool is used systematically, and the goal is not always to have everything as the upper right, but with the mitigation strategies provides space for negative scoring things to be addressed. DANIELLE – doesn’t explicitly talk about future impacts, specific to long term positives that appear as negative in the immediate? Tensions are often addressed in the comments, and through the conversations that are built after the tool. The tool is a work in progress KEVIN – is this for going forward issues only or can it be used retroactively? Two people at city do evaluations with a different tool set to address passed issues. KEVIN – Shouldn’t the two tools have similar rating to be able to compare results? NANCY – Appreciates that it’s only an hour process compared to the old way BOB – example of renewable energy, the longer term effects really do fit better under mitigation strategies • Climate action plan update worked nicely with tool, assessed easier, things like 100% renewable energy are very broad and don’t fit the tool as easily BOB – with adjustments, this tool can be effective for boards to use LINDSAY – works with policy really well 6. OTHER BUSINESS a. April meeting cadence April 11 is the TBL Meeting (5pm at Senior Center) April 16 public comment at council April 17 is the regular scheduled meeting Bob moves to not hold April 17th meeting as scheduled due to two other NRAB commitments in April, Elizabeth 2nd, unanimous b. Board Member Reports o LUKE – BAC – safe routes to schools, successful program that Fort Collins is a part of, one thing he liked hearing was when they go to the schools to do rides with the BOARD NAME TYPE OF MEETING – (REGULAR, WORKSESSION, SPECIAL) March 27, 2018 – MINUTES Page 9 kids to encourage kids to ride or bike in a safer fashion to school. They also use that as an opportunity to reach out to parents to do a “bicycle safety driver program”, and how to implement greater bike-friendly roads. Update of e-bike pilot program and how it will be evaluated and other bike infrastructure projects. o BOB – BAC – survey on two Saturdays in April on several trails to look at crashes and feedback on how trails are used, hefty volunteers program. o DANIELLE – West Nile Meeting – Presentation to impregnate birdseed with a widely used pesticide (Ivermectin?) that will help to potentially kill mosquitos that feed on them. Looking at expanding data into other areas (not specific to Fort Collins right now). Urban Agriculture will come up next month. o ELIZABETH – met with Kefalas, financing actual cost of fracking wells. Kefalas will be a strong ally. c. Six Month Calendar Review d. Additional Announcements o April 16th Natural Areas has open house to start gathering feedback on their plan. At Atzlan Center, one open house is specific for bike groups. Would be worth bringing natural area groups back to report to NRAB, since they have been separated for a few years now. o Farewell to Luke, he would love to see more thought given to stumbling blocks for changes that collectively we value, are some of the land use codes. Parking requirements for new developments, and same thing with water- deep, hard to change policies. Thinking about how could NRAB better influence potential land use, Parks and Trails, population is growing, securing dedicated funding for reinvestments in parks and trails will be critical. Would love to see council mandate affordable housing and have NRAB bring that up. The future of the city is ditch easements, and a critical assets the city has not tapped in to. 7. ADJOURNMENT by Nancy at 8:26 p.m.